


Crossed Wires

by Allekha



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: First Dates, First Kiss, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-17 13:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Nate helps Nick celebrate Valentine's Day with flowers, a case, and some heavy questions.





	Crossed Wires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gayporwave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayporwave/gifts).



"C'mon, Nick, you can't tell me that you don't know what to do with these."

'These' was a bouquet of flowers that Nate was trying to shove at him. Not the nice kind of bouquet that a flower shop would've put together, pre-War; some of the flowers were a little crumbly, and all of them were faded and had the stringy look of Wasteland flora, except for a few plastic ones that Nate had stuck in, which were merely dusty. Nick took them gingerly – they were tied together with a piece of cloth that had been cut off some gingham, but he didn't trust them not to lose all structural integrity. "Thanks?"

"See, there you go."

"What's the occasion?"

"Nick! Don't you keep track of the date? I know holidays aren't the same any more, but you should know."

Nick pinged the tiny date-time chip glued somewhere on his spine. February fourteenth. Ah. "Happy Valentine's to you too, Nate. I didn't realize you felt that way, or else I'd have some scrap metal lying around to give you in exchange. We're a bit short on chocolate here."

" _God_ do I miss chocolate," Nate said. Still grinning over his little joke, he sat down on the edge of Nick's desk. "Think they'll brighten up the place?" Nick shook his head at him and went to go find something to put the flowers in before they fell apart. He did find a little vase stuck in a corner – Ellie had filled it with pencils, but he replaced them with the flowers. He set it on Ellie's desk, and Nate cracked open a bottle of water to fill it up.

"That stuff purified? Don't need to waste it on these."

"Have you seen how many purifiers we have running in the settlements now? We practically have to give the stuff away." Once the vase was filled, he offered the rest of the bottle to Nick, who took a couple of small sips – his system could handle that much, and the feeling of clean water sliding over his tongue and down his throat was welcome, but odd. He didn't get thirsty anymore, but it made him remember: gulping down water while on a case, sipping slowly on ice water during a date, drinking the water the scientists at CIT had given him because he had nothing else to do as he waited and waited.

He handed the rest over. Nate drank heartily, eyes slipping closed. He deserved it; he'd done more for the Commonwealth than most people out there. Those purifiers wouldn't have been built without his work to organize settlements and find people who knew how to build things and gather supplies.

"So," Nate said, when the bottle had been shoved back into his massive bag, "did you have any cases that you needed help with?"

"Well, if you wanted to take a break from running around the wasteland to run around the wasteland...."

Nate laughed again. "It'd different when it's with you," he said, and the easy way he said it made Nick grin back at him.

"I do have a trail I was going to set out on. Never hurts to have some backup. Let's just wait until Ellie gets here so I can let her know." And so he could tell her about the new case to work on back here – people were always so much more willing to talk to her than the robot, especially once she'd mastered a sweet, innocent voice that was perfect for asking pointed questions.

Once Ellie had arrived and been informed, Nick headed out with Nate in tow. Lately Nate had been clomping around in power armor at every opportunity – he had a knack for finding those old power cores and wringing all the juice out of them – but he'd left it behind for this trip, and out of it he could at least try to be stealthy.

 _Try_. Less than an hour out of Diamond City, he'd tripped over a loose brick in the road and trod on a sleeping feral ghoul. At least he had the nerves to take it out in two hits, before Nick even had time to line up a shot.

"We've got to talk about your idea of stealth," Nick said. Nate gave him a sheepish look and promised to pick up his feet better. For all his months of adjustment to his new life, he still seemed to be used to smooth sidewalks and streets where it didn't matter how far his footsteps echoed.

At least the Wasteland was quiet today. No gangs of Raiders fighting in the streets, no Brotherhood helicarriers falling from the sky. He and Nate poked around in a few settlements, looking for information on a couple whose friends were worried about them. They didn't have much luck. Someone they talked to in the late afternoon had spotted them, around the last time the clients had been in contact with them, but that was about all they had to go on.

They took a break when the sun started to set and took shelter in an old house. About half of it was still intact, while the roof over the other half had fallen in until it was nothing but beams. "How secure do these look?" Nate asked, shaking one and eyeing it, and he didn't wait for Nick to answer before hopping up.

Nick groaned and climbed up after him. "What are you doing? If you fall, I can't exactly put you back together."

"I've got a first aid kit. One for people and one for those of you who have screws loose. Anyway, look, that's what I'm doing." He settled on the beam, staring out at the sunset.

They did have a nice view from here. Nick carefully set himself down next to Nate, tuned in to every kinetic sensor he had to make sure that the wood wasn't about to collapse from underneath them. But it barely shook with both of their weights on it, even when the wind kicked up for a minute.

The sunset was beautiful, especially with the sky mostly clear, with only a few wisps of clouds to catch some of the reds and oranges. But Nick had seen a lot of them in his day, and after a while, he started to stare at Nate instead. He was close enough to see that his upturned eyes had deep brown irises, though Nick already had the exact color codes stored away somewhere already. Nate's gaze wasn't especially deep, or piercing, or anything that would have got it a special description in a detective novel, but it was always attentive to whatever he was looking at. It made him good at interviewing witnesses, and also a pleasure to work with in the field, where he could carefully look over evidence and spot hidden traps before Nick did.

"Hey, Nick," said Nate, without turning to face him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course. Anytime."

Nate visibly hesitated. "So, uh. The Institute."

Nick didn't let himself make a face. He wished Nate would spend less time there. If they ever decided that they wanted to keep him, there was hardly anything that he – or any of the other friends Nate had made up here – could do. He didn't think that Nate would let himself listen to any of their propaganda, but what they might do to try and force it on him worried Nick all the same. "What about them?"

"I told you about Shaun," Nate said, slowly, "and, um, other Shaun."

"The synth kid?"

"Yeah, him." Nate went quiet for a long moment. That wasn't very like him at all, stopping to think in the middle of what he had to say. If he stopped, it was before he started talking at all. "Shaun was talking to me about him today. About how maybe they could... ugh, he said it like 'give him to me', telling me that they could reprogram him so he wouldn't even know that he was anything other than my son, that he wouldn't know he was an experiment... it was giving me the heeby-jeebies. I didn't know what to say except that I'd think about it." He kicked a leg. "It'd be better for him to be out of their reach, for sure, but. What do you think?"

Nick shifted his weight back. "That's a messy situation. You talked to any of your friends in the Railroad yet?"

"No. Or the Minutemen, haven't talked to them recently, either. Kind of trying to take a break from all the people who want something from me. You're not like that. You just want to help, and it's nice to get to help with you." Something got a little warmer in Nick's chest; he felt his systems direct more coolant to his upper body. "Besides, I know you've said that you've had trouble with your situation. Would it be better to take Shaun and tell him? Not tell him? He's never going to grow up, so he'd figure something was up eventually, wouldn't he? Should I... I know he's not the Shaun that Nora had. Does that matter? Should I find someone else to adopt him?"

"Slow down with the interrogation. Some of us have rusty circuits." Nate's lip twitched up at the stupid joke, before he turned to stare at his feet, kicking gently in the air.

Hoo boy. Yeah, that was – Nick had spent a lot of time thinking about himself. More than was healthy, probably. Nate and Ellie acted like he was his own person, separate from the original Nick, but it wasn't that easy when he had all of that Nick's memories, his mannerisms and speech tics. Even his time in the Wasteland hadn't supplanted all of that.

It was especially strange when he and the original Nick were at odds with each other. Nick wasn't in love with Jennifer, but he could remember _being_ in love with her, how much her death had devastated him. The sharp grief, the despair that had led the original Nick to the CIT. And before her, Old Nick had caught the eyes of a lot of women, but Nick had been startled the first time he'd idly caught himself admiring a man's strong cheekbones. It wasn't right, a voice inside him had whispered, though he'd seen how people didn't care about that kind of thing any more; it wasn't right for Jennifer, either, another little voice said, even though she was long dead. Even though, if she'd somehow magically appeared before him, he'd have to let her down gently and tell her that her Nick was gone.

Old Nick had liked detective stories and classic books. So did Nick, but he'd gotten into the sci-fi that was still laying around in abundance, too, and not just because of boredom. It was nice to read stories about aliens and robots and other strange creatures that lived in harmony with humans, especially in the days before Nick started to find people who accepted him. It didn't matter much who he liked, anyway, when not a lot of people wanted to go home with a mechanical man, or even share a neighborhood with him.

"I can't decide for you," he said. "Whether or not you'd feel like you'd be replacing baby Shaun with him, whether or not that truly matters, whether or not it's too hard for you, that's all up to you. But if you do take him in, you're going to have to let him know sometime. Might as well be after he's had a couple of days to settle in to his new home, give him time to get used to the idea. A lot of time."

"Would you be willing to talk to him? If he wants? I don't know a lot of other people who'd have that experience."

"Of course. Same goes for me, after all." Other problems that came with being a synth, sure. But he couldn't exactly relate to the people who suddenly realized that their entire lives were lies up to a certain point, since that had never been true for him. His life had been real; it was just that it was someone else's life in the first place.

"Or anything else? I was telling him about my detective friend, last time I saw him, about a couple of the cases I helped you with. He thought that it was – quote – 'the coolest thing ever' and asked if he could be a detective some day. I told him he had to read all the Sherlock Holmes stories, first."

"Ha. We'll see if he think it's so impressive after seeing me in person. You know, I think I have a copy of the complete stories, if you want to give it to him."

Nate finally glanced over and gave him a smile. Nick made a mental note to find the books later. He had some other good detective tales, too, if the kid was into those.

A moment later, there was a warm weight on his shoulder – Nate's head. "Thanks, Nick. Sorry to ruin our nice little date with such heavy talk. And the sunset's pretty much gone, too." He gave a humorless laugh.

"Eh, that happens." Again with the bad jokes. He reached up to pat Nate's shoulder, and – wait.

The evidence: today's date. The flowers. The sunset. Calling sitting up here in the wind a date. The way that Nate was always sitting next to him in groups. The way that Nate liked to sleep next to him – Nick had chalked it up to the warmth that always radiated from his system. How often Nate asked him out on adventures, or checked up on him in Diamond City, to the point that hardly a week ever went by without Nick seeing him at least once, despite how many people demanded his time. Nate several times offering to help him with the screw in his exposed metal wrist just as Nick himself realized that it needed tightening yet again, until he'd found a mechanic who had fixed it entirely. Nate's brown eyes on him, asking for stories when they had a long road ahead, or a cold night to face.

Conclusion: either Nick was misreading the way that Nate was leaning into him, or he was perhaps the luckiest synth in the Commonwealth.

"Not much of a date when only one of us ate dinner, anyway," he said. Mutfruit for Nate, eaten hastily on the road. "Not a single kiss, either." He clicked his tongue. "That wouldn't pass even in the old world."

"Guess we could fix one of those," said Nate, his voice even and casual as he sat back up. "You know, if you're into humans." He raised an eyebrow.

In response, Nick tilted his head. His first instinct was to ask if Nate was _sure_ , if he was quite aware that Nick wasn't a gen 3 underneath his coat, that he had glitches and worn-out parts and more than a few differences from humans.

Of course Nate was well-aware, he had to remind himself, old habits trying to flare up. He'd stuck his hand in the torn skin of Nate's throat a couple of months ago when he'd managed to jam something he couldn't reach himself. Hadn't seemed phased by the request, just panicked by the idea that there was something wrong with Nick.

Hell, it was Valentine's Day. Maybe if he'd finally found someone who could like an old synth, he should take the leap and see how it worked out.

And Nate was like that: he didn't blink at synths, or sentient robots, or ghouls, or even the super-mutant scientist that had set Nick so on-edge his system had been working at 100%. Nate had said they were all equally strange and new to him, as though he'd been dropped into a sci-fi world and that was just the way some people were.

Nick was used to being the gentleman who leaned in slowly and carefully to peck a cheek at the end of a date before going in for a real kiss if the interest was there. Nate didn't let him do any of that. There were hands on his cheeks, and then there was a mouth on his. Softer, the texture real, the skin too cold. A kiss that Nick could have, but not the old Nick. "You're so warm," Nate whispered when he pulled away, leaving his hands where they were.

"And you're too cold. Come on, let's get you inside before you freeze."

"Warm me up, Mister Valentine? There's only one blanket."

"Are you asking me to get past first base on our first date? I'm scandalized."

Maybe he shouldn't have made Nate laugh like that while he was climbing down. Nick felt a moment of pure panic when Nate's grip slipped, though he regained it a moment later. "You can warm me up by laying next to me with all of our clothes on, if you like," he called up.

Later, lying wrapped up together on the remains of a bed, Nick found himself hesitating to so much as put his hands on Nate's waist. The bones of this were familiar to him, but the feedback was different. Nate was different.

"Sorry," he found himself saying. "This is a little, uh... not new, but I haven't had a lot of chances to do this as me. If that makes sense. Not sure how it's all supposed to work with this body of mine."

"I think it'd be fun to find out with you," said Nate. "If you'd like. I can wait – I've been trying to drop you hints for weeks now."

"Really?"

"I tried to ask you out for New Year's!"

"You did?" Nick went back through his memory banks – Nate, asking him to be in Sanctuary, asking him to sit on the roof together away from the rest of the party, their shoulders touching, asking about his resolutions, mentioning the tradition about kissing people – damn. Nick had thought he'd been talking about the past, about someone now lost to him. He groaned. "I got in the habit of counting myself out as a possibility, I guess. Should've just kissed me if you wanted to."

"I was afraid you'd fall off the roof if I did. You sure nobody else tried before me?"

"What, with this handsome mug?"

"It's not that bad. You've got pretty eyes. 'sides, they say it's the heart that counts, and yours is awfully good. Made of pure gold and everything."

"Says the leader of the Minutemen, member of the Railroad, organizer of so many settlements I've lost track, bringer of infinite pure water to the Commonwealth—"

Nate sighed. "C'mon, Nick." 

So Nick shut up and kissed him again. It didn't feel so strange this time, closer to what Nick remembered – maybe not in sensation, but in the feeling of it, of being close to someone and wanting their affection and attention. It was impossible to tell the color of Nate's eyes in this darkness, but the way that they were focused straight on him – the way that they closed when Nick touched his cheek, the stubble a little rough and the skin whole and real beneath it – told him that he had all of that.


End file.
